60

AbstractGenetic algorithm (GA) is a powerful

optimization method which is used in this paper for the
synthesis of antenna array radiation pattern in adaptive
beamforming. The synthesis problem discussed in this
paper is to find the amplitude excitation of the antenna
array elements that are optimum to provide radiation
pattern with maximum reduction in sidelobe level.
Unlike Simple GA (SGA), the Genetic algorithm solver
from the optimization toolbox of MATLAB is used with
adaptive feasible mutation, which enables search in
broader space along randomly generated directions to
produce new generations. This improves the
performance greatly to achieve the maximum reduction
in sidelobe level with minimum function calls.
Experiments proved the effectiveness of this method.
Index Terms Adaptive Beamforming, Sidelobe level,
Genetic Algorithm, Linear antenna array, Array
Pattern synthesis, convergence, Array factor.

I. INTRODUCTION
Adaptive Beamforming is an adaptive signal
processing technique in which an array of antennas
is exploited to achieve maximum reception in a look
direction in which the signal of interest(SOI) is
present, while signals of same frequency from other
directions which are not desired ( Signal of not
interest) are rejected. This is equivalent to FIR
(Finite impulse response) filtering. The overall
performance this filter depends on the selection of
number of taps and their coefficients. In a similar
way, the number of antenna elements acts as the tap
and corresponding weight vector supplied to the
antenna elements determines the performance of the
antenna array. Adaptive beamforming enhances the

1. Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication
Engineering , HolyCross Engineering College, Anna University of
Technology, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
Email id: [email protected]
2. Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication
Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai
Tamil Nadu, INDIA
Email id: [email protected]

desired signal while suppressing noise and
interference at the output of array of sensor thereby
improving the signal to interference plus noise ratio.
The basic idea is, though the signals emanating from
different transmitters occupy same frequency, they
still arrive from different directions. This spatial
separation is exploited to separate the desired signal
from the interfering signals. In adaptive beamforming
the optimum weights are iteratively computed using
complex algorithms based upon different criteria.
The characteristics of the antenna array can be
controlled by the geometry of the element and array
excitation. But sidelobe level reduction in the
radiation pattern [1],[2],[3] should be performed to
avoid degradation of total power efficiency.
Interference suppression [4],[5] must be done to
improve the Signal to noise plus interference ratio
(SINR). Sidelobe level reduction and interference
suppression can be obtained using the following
techniques: 1) amplitude only control 2) phase only
control 3) position only control and 4) complex
weights (both amplitude and phase control). In this,
complex weights technique is the most efficient
technique because it has greater degrees of freedom
for the solution space. On the other hand it is the
most expensive to implement in practice.
Pattern synthesis is the process of choosing the
antenna parameters to obtain desired radiation
characteristics, such as specific position of the nulls
[6], the desired sidelobe level [7] and beam width of
antenna pattern. In literature there are many works
concerned with the synthesis of antenna array. It has
a wide range of study from analytical method to
numerical method and to optimization methods.
Analytical studies by Stone who proposed binominal
distribution, Dolph the Dolph-Chebyshev amplitude
distribution, Taylor, Elliot, Villeneuve, Hansen ,
Woodyard and Bayliss laid the strong foundation on
antenna array synthesis [8],[9]. Iterative Numerical
methods became popular in 1970s to shape the
mainbeam. Today a lot of research on antenna array
[4][14] is being carried out using various
optimization techniques to solve electromagnetic
Investigation on the Performance of Linear
Antenna Array synthesis using Genetic
Algorithm
T.S.JEYALI LASEETHA
1
Dr. (Mrs.) R.SUKANESH
2
Cyber Journals: Multidisciplinary Journals in Science and Technology, Journal of Selected Areas in Telecommunications (JSAT), May Edition, 2011

61

problems due to their robustness and easy adaptivity.
One among them is Genetic algorithm [10] .
In this paper, it is assumed that the array is uniform,
where all the antenna elements are identical and
equally spaced. The design criterion here considered
is to minimize the sidelobe level [15] with narrow
main beamwidth. Hence the synthesis problem is,
finding the weights that are optimum to provide the
radiation pattern with maximum reduction in the
sidelobe level.

II. GENETIC ALGORITHM
Genetic Algorithms are a family of computational
models inspired by evolution [10],[16],[17]. GA is a
procedure used to find approximate solutions to
search problems through application of the principles
of evolutionary biology. GA uses biologically
inspired techniques such as genetic inheritance,
natural selection, mutation, and sexual reproduction
(recombination, or crossover).
The genetic algorithm was first introduced in 1975 by
Holland [16]. This algorithm has been realized and
widely used after Goldbergs studies [17].
GA consists of a data structure of individuals called
Population. Individuals are also called as
chromosomes. Each individual is represented by
usually the binary strings. Each individual represents
a point in the search space and a solution candidate.
The individuals in the population are then exposed to
the process of evolution. Initial population is
generated randomly. The consecutive generations
(children) are created using the parents from the
previous generation. Two parents are selected for
reproduction using recombination. Recombination
consists of two genetic operators namely 1) crossover
and 2) mutation. Newly generated individuals are
tested for their fitness based on the cost function and
the best survives for the next generation. Genes from
good individuals propagate throughout the population
thus making the successive generation more suited to
its environment.
In this paper, performance improvement is analyzed
in order to obtain a desired pattern of linear antenna
array using GA. Fixed mutation rate approach is used
in classical GA. In this paper, adaptive feasible
mutation rate is used, which shows improvement in
performance throughout the evolution. The impact of
the crossover scheme to the solution performance is
also investigated in this paper. Instead of determining
the crossover point in a totally random fashion, the
probable crossover points have been kept limited to
single.
GAs are typically implemented using computer
simulations. Much research on electromagnetics and
antenna arrays using GA has been reported
in[18],[19],[27]-[31].

The important parameters of GA are:
Crossover this operator exchanges genetic
material which are the features of an optimization
problem
Selection this is based on the fitness criterion to
choose which individuals from a population will go
on to reproduce
Reproduction the propagation of individuals
from one generation to the next
Mutation the modification of chromosomes for
single individuals

Current GA theory consists of two main approaches
Markov chain analysis and schema theory. Markov
chain analysis is primarily concerned with
characterizing the stochastic dynamics of a GA
system. The most severe limitation of this approach is
that while crossover is easy to implement, its
dynamics are difficult to describe mathematically.
A schema is a conceptual system for understanding
knowledge and how knowledge is represented and
used.
III. LINEAR ANTENNA ARRAY MODEL
An incident plane wave causes a linear gradient time
delay between the antenna elements that is
proportional to the angle of incidence. This time
delay along the array manifests as a progressive
phase shift between the elements when it is projected
onto the sinusoidal carrier frequency. In the special
case of normal incidence of the plane wave, all the
antennas receive exactly the same signal, with no
time delay or phase shift.


Figure 1: Antenna Array

In this work the antenna elements are assumed to be
uniformly spaced, in a straight line along the y-axis,
and N is always the total number of elements in the
antenna array. The physical separation distance is d,
and the wave number of the carrier signal is k =2/.
The product kd is then the separation between the
antennas in radians. When kd is equal to (or d= /2)


SIGNAL
OUTPUT
WEIGHT VECTORS
(Wn)


DESIRED SIGNAL
SIDELOBE
INTERFERENCE
MAIN LOBE
62

the antenna array has maximum gain with the
greatest angular accuracy with no grating lobes. The
phase shift between the elements experienced by the
plane wave is kdcos and is measured from the y-
axis, starting from the first antenna, as shown in Fig1.
Weights can be applied to the individual antenna
signals before the array factor (AF) is formed to
control the direction of the main beam. This
corresponds to a multiple-input-single-output (MISO)
system. The total AF is just the sum of the individual
signals, given by [9]


= =
=
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
=
N
n
jK
N
n
n
n
e E AF
1 1
.. (1)

where
n
jK
n
e E = and K= (nkd cos +
n
) is the phase
difference.
n
| is the phase angle. Final simplification
of equation (1) is by conversion to phasor notation.
Only the magnitude of the AF in any direction is
important, the absolute phase has no bearing on the
transmitted or received signal. Therefore, only the
relative phases of the individual antenna signals are
important in calculating the AF. Any signal
component that is common to all of the antennas has
no effect on the magnitude of the AF.
IV. PROBLEM FORMULATION

Consider an array of antenna consisting of 2N
number of elements. It is assumed that the antenna
elements are symmetric about the center of the linear
array. The far field array factor of this array with an
even number of isotropic elements (2N) can be
expressed as
( ) |
.
|

\
|
=

=
u

t
u sin cos 2
1
n
N
n
n
d a a AF (2)
where a
n
is the amplitude of the n
th
element, u is the
angle from broadside and d
n
is the distance between
position of the n
th
element and the array center. The
main objective of this work is to find an appropriate
set of required element amplitudes a
n
that achieves
interference suppression with maximum sidelobe
level reduction and narrow main beamwidth.
To find a set of values which produces the array
pattern, the algorithm is used to minimize the
following cost function
( ) ( ) ( ) | | u u u
u
d
F Fo W cf =

=
90
90
. (3)
where F
0
() is the pattern obtained using our
algorithm and F
d
() is the pattern desired. Here it is
taken to be the Chebychev pattern with SLL of -13dB
and W() is the weight vector to control the sidelobe
level in the cost function. The value of cost function
is to be selected based on experience and knowledge.

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The antenna model consists of 20 elements and
equally spaced with d =0.5 along y-axis. Voltage
sources are at the center segment of each element and
the amplitude of the voltage level is the antenna
element weight. Only the voltage applied to the
element is changed to find the optimum amplitude
distribution, while the array geometry and elements
remain constant.
Optimization toolbox with ga-Genetic Algorithm
solver in MATLAB has been used in experiments to
find the amplitude excitations to achieve minimum
sidelobe level of -50 dB. Half the number of elements
is used as the number of variables with the Lower
Bound (LB) = 0 and Upper Bound(UB) = 1. The
details of the other parameters set in these
experiments are as follows
Population size = 20
Selection function = Roulette
Reproduction (Elite count) = 1
Mutation function = Adaptive feasible
Crossover function = Single point
A. Case 1:
Number of variables = 8;
Number of array elements=16;
The experiment has been conducted for 25 times and
the best results are presented here.
Fig 2 shows four different plots viz 1) Best fitness 2)
Best individual 3) Score Diversity and 4) Array
pattern.
Best result of 48.9263dB sidelobe level is obtained
with a mean value of -48.8641dB. The number of
variables is selected as 8, as the antenna array
consists of even number of elements which is
symmetric about the center. The Score Histogram
shows that among 20 of the population, 12
individuals give the best score <-48 dB. It converges
to -48dB only after 75 generations.

Fig 3 shows that the sidelobe level is reduced to
36.7213dB with a mean value of -38.6051dB.
The Score Histogram shows 13 individuals get the
score < -36.6 dB. The amplitude excitations of best
individuals are obtained as
w1 = 0.9853; w2 = 0.9242; w3 = 0.8215;
w4 = 0.6698; w5 = 0.5218; w6 = 0.3527;
w7 = 0.2316; w8 = 0.1406 ;
63

The same is tabulated in Table1 for 16 elements. The
sidelobe levels are almost constant for 6 sidelobes
and the last one is wider and less than the remaining.
The convergence takes place in 80 generations.
B. Case 2:
Number of variables = 10;
Number of array elements = 20;
The experiment is repeated for 10 variables.
Fig.4 shows that the sidelobe level is reduced to
-31.147dB whereas the mean is -30dB. All the
individuals lie within the range of -30.5dB to -
31.5dB. The main beamwidth is narrower but the
sidelobes are wider.
C. Case 3
The simulation experiments are conducted with 22,
42, and 62 elements for 25 runs and their
performance are compared with that of a table given
in [17]. Table2 shows the performance
characteristics of five algorithms for an average of 25
runs with random seed values of the amplitude
weights. Genetic algorithm performs well when
compared to Nelder Mead but poorer when compared
to the remaining algorithms. But the function calls
are minimum than all other algorithm. Hence it is
cost effective in terms of computational time. Genetic
algorithm shows the best results of median sidelobe
level of -32.04dB with median function calls of 700
when the array size is 16 elements.

Among the three cases the number of elements of the
antenna array with N = 16 performed very well with
narrow main beamwidth and reduced sidelobe level
and minimum number of function calls which cost
less computation time and less complexity.

The Genetic algorithm has many variables to control
and trade-offs to consider such as
1) Number of Chromosomes and initial random
Population: more number of chromosomes
provide better sampling number, solution
space but at the cost of slow convergence.
2) Random list generation, type of probability
distribution and weighting of the parameter
all have significant impact on the
convergence time.
3) Selection method Roulette selection is
employed to decide which chromosome to
discard.
4) Crossover function It is for the
chromosome mating, and single point cross
over is used here.
5) Mutation rate - It is selected to mutate a
particular chromosome. Mutate does not
permit the algorithm to get stuck at local
minimum.
6) Stopping Criteria, set in this program are
maxgen = 100 and mincost = -50dB.
In this paper the Genetic Algorithm has
converged well for a variant of options
mentioned above with some trade offs to have
main impact on convergence speed.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper Genetic algorithm Solver in
Optimization toolbox of MATLAB is used to obtain
maximum reduction in sidelobe level relative to the
main beam on both sides of 0. The specialty of the
Genetic algorithm is that it can optimize the large
number of discrete parameters. Genetic algorithm is
an intellectual algorithm searches for the optimum
element weight of the array antenna. This paper
demonstrated the different ways to apply Genetic
algorithm by varying values number of elements to
optimize the array pattern. Adaptive feasible
mutation with single point crossover and Roulette
selection showed the performance improvement by
reducing the sidelobe level below -30dB in most of
the cases with number of variables as 8 and minimum
function calls when compared to the other methods
shown in Table2. The best result of -48.9dB is
obtained for 16 elements proving that this method is
efficient with much of the computation time and
complexity are reduced.

REFERENCES

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TABLE 1

AMPLITUDE EXCITATIONS OF A 16 ELEMENT ARRAY


TABLE 2

COMPARISON OF OPTIMIZED SIDELOBES FOR THREE DIFFERENT ARRAY SIZES [17] USING OTHER
ALGORITHMS AND GENETIC ALGORITHM




















22 Elements 42 Elements 62 Elements

Median Median
Sidelobe Function
Level (dB) Calls
Median Median
Sidelobe Function
Level (dB) Calls
Median Median
Sidelobe Function
Level (dB) Calls
BFGS
DFP
Nelder Mead
Steepest descent
Genetic Algorithm
-30.3 1007
-27.9 1006
-18.7 956
-24.6 1005
-22.3 830
-25.3 2008
-25.2 2011
-17.3 2575
-21.6 2009
-20.3 940
-26.6 3016
-26.6 3015
-17.2 3551
-21.8 3013
-20.9 860

65




Figure 2 Performance characteristics of an antenna array with number of elements 16.



Figure 3 Performance characteristics of an antenna array with number of elements 16.

0 50 100
-60
-40
-20
0
Generation
F
i
t
n
e
s
s

v
a
l
u
e
Best: -48.9263 Mean: -48.8641


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0
0.5
1
Number of variables (8)
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

b
e
s
t

i
n
d
i
v
i
d
u
a
l
Current Best Individual
-49 -48.8 -48.6 -48.4 -48.2
0
5
10
15
Score Histogram
Score (range)
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

i
n
d
i
v
i
d
u
a
l
s
-50 0 50
-60
-40
-20
0
u
|
A
F
(
u
)
|
Best f itness
Mean f itness
0 50 100
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
Generation
F
i
t
n
e
s
s

v
a
l
u
e
Best: -36.7213 Mean: -36.6051


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0
0.5
1
Number of variables (8)
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

b
e
s
t

i
n
d
i
v
i
d
u
a
l
Current Best Individual
-36.8 -36.6 -36.4 -36.2 -36
0
2
4
6
8
Score Histogram
Score (range)
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

i
n
d
i
v
i
d
u
a
l
s
-50 0 50
-60
-40
-20
0
u
|
A
F
(
u
)
|
Best f itness
Mean f itness

66


Figure 4 Performance characteristics of an antenna array with number of elements 20.


Figure 5 Performance characteristics of an antenna array with number of elements 20.
0 50 100
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
Generation
F
i
t
n
e
s
s

v
a
l
u
e
Best: -31.1473 Mean: -30.8601


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
0.5
1
Number of variables (10)
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

b
e
s
t

i
n
d
i
v
i
d
u
a
l
Current Best Individual
-31.5 -31 -30.5 -30
0
2
4
6
Score Histogram
Score (range)
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

i
n
d
i
v
i
d
u
a
l
s
-50 0 50
-60
-40
-20
0
u
|
A
F
(
u
)
|
Best f itness
Mean f itness
0 50 100
-40
-30
-20
-10
Generation
F
i
t
n
e
s
s

v
a
l
u
e
Best: -32.1697 Mean: -31.9476


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
0.5
1
1.5
Number of variables (10)
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

b
e
s
t

i
n
d
i
v
i
d
u
a
l
Current Best Individual
-32.5 -32 -31.5 -31
0
2
4
6
Score Histogram
Score (range)
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

i
n
d
i
v
i
d
u
a
l
s
-50 0 50
-60
-40
-20
0
u
|
A
F
(
u
)
|
Best f itness
Mean f itness